Legume Taxonomy Working Group

Develop one universally accepted list of legume species names!

Coordinators : Marianne le Roux (South African National Biodiversity Institute, SANBI, South Africa), Anne Bruneau (Université de Montréal, Canada) and Juliana Rando (University of Western Bahia, Brazil).

Introduction

The Legume Taxonomy Working Group (LPWG) has the central goal of coordinating a community-endorsed consensus list of legume species names and their synonyms. Our aim is to provide an accurate and up-to-date family classification that can be used for downstream analyses of all kinds for applied and fundamental research questions, including conservation, agronomic and green infrastructure purposes. This up-to-date species list provides the critical backbone for other LPWG working groups focusing on assembling occurrence and functional trait data from public databases, literature and collections, for example. The LPWG-verified and endorsed species list has been adopted and is now used as the taxonomic backbone for Leguminosae for large international initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Plants of the World Online, Catalogue of Life, World Flora Online, and several ongoing phylogenomic projects. The legume Taxonomic Working Group is now recognised as the Taxonomic Expert Network for Leguminosae for World Flora Online. These collaborations are important to avoid duplication of efforts by a small pool of taxonomic experts.

Strategy

In collaboration with Rafaël Govaerts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Taxonomy Working Group initiated the process using Kew’s core checklist data, available for download on Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP). This core checklist links to the International Plant Name Index (IPNI) and also underlies the Plants of the World Online website. The WCVP list includes all the Darwin Core fields that the legume community considers important for downstream analyses. To revise the list of legume species names, a network of 38 coordinators for the subfamilies (and tribes for Papilionoideae) were assigned the task of approaching and coordinating interested legume taxonomic experts for assistance in checking and editing the list of legume names. The revised data are forwarded to Rafaël Govaerts who checks the proposed modifications and integrates the information in an updated legume species list. The revised species list acknowledges the input of contributors to the ratification of the legume taxonomy.

Governance

The legume species list only includes extant taxa and is strictly developed through collaboration among legume taxonomic and nomenclatural experts. Checklist verification per sé has not been funded but curation undertaken for smaller components of the species list may have been funded by contributors’ employers and external funders. The species list is based on and maintained according to published scientific research with input from any interested legume taxonomic expert at regional to global level, aiming to create a consensus names list. The application of names is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. The species list is made available, in open access, under a CC0 license, and can be accessed via various portals (see below).

If conflicting taxonomies arise, the problem will be dealt with by an arbitration committee. Such a committee will be re-established when required, with representation of experts for all subfamilies, and all continents. Resolution will initially be attempted through consultation with both parties involved, and more widely if necessary, with the desire to reach consensus. If no consensus can be reached, the conflict will be solved by a vote as a last resort. Errors in the species list may be pointed out by contacting the coordinators.

Help check species names

If you would like to participate in this endeavour and share your taxonomic expertise, please contact Marianne le Roux, Juliana Rando or Anne Bruneau.

To learn more about how to check names, please visit this blog post.

The list of genera that must still be verified is available here. We are especially interested in your expertise to help check Papilionoideae and Caesalpinioideae names.

The checklist

The most recent list of accepted names is visible on:

Further reading:

Le Roux, M.M. Miller, J.T., Waller, J., Döring, M. & Bruneau, A. 2022. An expert curated global legume checklist improves the accuracy of occurrence, biodiversity and taxonomic data. Scientific Data 9:708. Link